Away & Apart
by silversurf4
Summary: Takes place six months after the events depicted in Season Two Finale "One".  Crews simply vanishes and Reese is left to deal with his absence and what that means to her.  She doesn't do well….  Rated M for sexual content in later chapters
1. Chapter 1

**Away and Apart**

**Time Frame** = Takes place six months after the events depicted in Season Two Finale "One".

**Overview** = Crews simply vanishes and Reese is left to deal with his absence and what that means to her. She doesn't do well….

**Tidwell's POV….**

Dani Reese was a woman on a mission and had been for every moment of every hour of every day for the six months since Charlie Crews walked out of his interview with IAD and vanished. Her fury was buried in a blinding work ethic. She set a crippling pace; so much so that anyone unlucky enough to be notionally assigned to her as a "partner" never lasted more than a week. They quit under the strain of her dark mood and punishing pace. She was a force of nature; closing cases, eliciting confessions from the toughest of hard cases, and never speaking to anyone not required for the job. It drove potential partners away as effectively as the plague.

Everyone knew Reese had no partner but Crews.

But the one who felt this most profoundly was her former lover and Captain, Kevin Tidwell. He watched her under cloaked eyes from his desk, as she worked endlessly, seemingly fueled only by hate and coffee, with occasional forays into things so dangerous adrenaline burned though her veins like there was gasoline feeding it. She was always small, but now she was thin, lean and taut like a coiled spring; one that no one dared trigger.

Even her paperwork was angry, she banged the keyboard with entirely too much force and her handwriting tore into the paper in hard, heavy strokes, like the letters were being ripped from her heart. Since that fateful day when she escaped death and her life should have begun anew she seemed to sink into an abyss of despair. The only tool she had to fight back with was rage and her rumored ferocity, which he'd heard about but had never experienced until now.

He remembered the exact moment he'd known it was over between them like it was yesterday, although it had been months ago. He was among the throng of people with LAPD who descended upon that orange grove in the moments after Crews snuffed out Roman's life and miraculously walked away from certain death. Tidwell was joyous, happy beyond words, until he saw the way Dani Reese looked at him and the way she looked at Crews. Tidwell knew the look she reserved for her partner, it was adoration; it was love.

In that instant he flashed back to their first case together, when he came out west to the land of fun and sun meeting for the first time, the quirky, unhinged Detective Crews and his diminutive tightlipped, but attractive partner. They were a good team, evenly matched in ability if on opposite ends of the spectrum in mood, appearance and countenance.

Their match seemed unbalanced at first, until he looked harder. It was then he saw the intensity present in both of them in equal measure. As they found the young bride to be in a box on the beach, the protectiveness Reese extended to her partner and her devotion to him became evident. But then Kevin Tidwell hadn't appreciated the depth of their bond. Perhaps neither had they.

Tidwell even commented how lucky Crews was to have someone like her in his life. And she didn't correct him, which at the time he hadn't thought was important, but in hindsight was very telling. He realized it was true then and it remained true today. She was in his life and Crews in hers. They had been together since the start; they were together still. He was an interloper, an intruder, a dalliance, and a distraction. Crews was a constant, a confidant, her anchor and now the savior of a woman who did not need saving.

He looked out across the squad room, where most of the desks were dark and empty, their occupants long gone - home to their families and friends. Only he and she remained, but they were worlds away. When he extinguished his desk lamp, retrieved his jacket and walked through the bay, she didn't look up, she didn't blink; it was as if he did not exist and then he realized he didn't – not to her. No one did – except Crews.

Their break up hadn't taken long. Really it happened in that look, but he had to have more. So as they marshaled Crews away to be grilled by IAD and shepherded Reese away to the hospital, he made his choice with his heart. He followed her, abandoning Crews to the wolves, and she never forgave him.

"You left him alone?" she'd barked, her voice hoarse and crackling with emotion. She was dangerously close to tears and Dani Reese was a woman who did not cry. "With them? You know what they'll do to him?" her hoarse whisper was heartbreaking.

"He's a grown man, he can handle those IAD types," he brushed aside her concern. Big mistake. Even as he began his weak protest, he watched her turn cold. Her dark eyes nearly black, narrowed until they drilled into him. "You need to stay here and let the docs look after you," he said cautiously.

"You get me out of here now," she demanded.

But he couldn't, he wouldn't and that more than anything drove a stake through the heart of their relationship. To him it was serious, but to Dani it was not - he now realized. To her it was just sex. Her heart belonged to her long, tall, quixotic partner, even if she didn't know it, even if she wouldn't admit it.

Even when they finally gave her enough tranquilizers to put down a horse, still she fought to get to him. In her whispered mumblings and thrashings only one word was clear - his name. She called to him in her sleep, in her distress, when life turned darkest there was only one name on her lips and it was "Crews."

Tidwell surrendered in disgust and left the hospital well after visiting hours only to find a bleary eyed Charlie Crews haunting the well lit hallways, in the same suit he'd worn for two days. There was a tension in Crews beyond meeting with IAD.

"Captain," the tall man said tersely in greeting, as he ran a hand through his short red hair and issued a ragged sigh. "How is she?"

"See for yourself Crews," Tidwell retorted, angrily brushing past him.

Crews grabbed him by the arm with an iron grip and his tone was biting and serious. "Did something happen? Did he hurt her?"

He pointedly looked down and felt the clawing grip of the Detective's nails digging into his arm relax slightly.

"No," he shook his head. "Nevikov didn't touch her – not like that. Other than to rough her up," he offered, allaying Charlie's worst fears. The concern in Crews eyes was apparent and it struck Tidwell that the man did not deserve his anger, but there was nowhere else he could direct it. "But you know Dani, she's stubborn and fighting them every step of the way." Crews released him and looked down in obvious relief.

"Ok, then I should go," Crews said, more to himself than to Tidwell.

"No, you should go see her," he offered, unable to keep Dani from what she obviously wanted no matter how badly it hurt him.

Crews agreed again more to himself than to his Captain. "Yeah, I should go see her. Need to see her, see that she's okay, that's right, that's good." He seemed unaware he was babbling to himself. Tidwell was unsure if Dani had that effect on all men or if this was just another of Crews strange behaviors.

"How'd it go with IAD?" he changed the subject hoping to settle the man down and get his mind focused on something other than the small, tough woman they both loved.

"Huh?" the red head responded with a true deer in the headlights look. Maybe he'd been up too long, Tidwell realized. "What? Oh…the rat squad," Crews responded as he made the connection and his expression changed. He answered grimly, "I think I may have to consider another line of work."

"Yeah, but she's worth it right?" Tidwell joked with him.

Crews eyed him skeptically at first and then his look softened as an unspoken message passed between them. Tidwell acquiesced and Charlie accepted without a word being spoken, then Crews said what they both knew, "She is."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

**Dani's POV….**

Dani's memory each night was the same. She remembered watching Crews through the windshield, as he stood there looking into the sun. Though the air was thick with dust, he stood apart looking every inch like a Greek god in the sun with his fiery red hair and blue suit, alive and invincible. It was inconceivable that he could have survived, escaped. Him being there alive and well was simply unbelievable, but then that was normal for Crews. His world seemed to hum at a different frequency than the rest of the planet. She was just beginning to feel she could hear what he could, when he disappeared from her life.

They held her overnight "for observation" and she gnashed her teeth, until the doctors resorted to giving her enough sedative to knock out an Olympic wrestler. When she awoke, Crews was gone and after the initial shock wore off the anger came. It was easy and it was there in the fury behind her glare as Tidwell delivered the bad news.

"IAD kicked him after the word 'lawyer' came up. I guess they decided they couldn't afford another $50 million," he offered lightly. "I thought he'd come here," he left the comment hanging between them as she glared at him, her eyes hooded in the sedative hangover.

"Hey," he spoke sharply to her, "a lot of people were looking for you, you know? Not just Crews." She sat stiffly with her arms crossed. She said nothing and refused to look at him. "Let me take you home," he offered.

"Leave me the hell alone," she spat at him.

She'd lasted less than ten hours in her house calling his cell repeatedly, before she climbed in her car and drove to his place. The house was unlocked. Crews never locked anything. She surmised being confined for that long he did not like bars, locks, walls or fences. The house was eerily quiet and in the fruit bowl there was a note in Ted's neat block printing that read, "Gone to Spain."

She wandered upstairs towards where she knew Crews slept, feeling somewhat like an intruder, but concerned. She whispered under her breath, "Come on Crews, where the hell are you?" Then she rolled her eyes realizing she was talking to herself, "Great, now you got me doing it."

His room was Spartan, save for a sprawling California king sized bed with expensive linen rumpled but not slept in. She froze as a buzzing noise called to her from the bed. It was his cell, with eleven missed calls from her and a text from Ted reminding him to pay a bill while he was gone.

She dropped the cell back onto the covers and then wandered into his closet and bath. His closet was extraordinarily ordered, another byproduct of living in an institutionalized setting. His work clothes were neatly arranged, hung and evenly spaced. Jeans, t-shirts and hoodies neatly folded on the shelves therein also. His shoes were paired and squared in the bottom of the massive closet and nothing appeared to be amiss.

"Where are you Charlie?" she asked the universe at large. Her fingers dragged across the hung suits, and brushed the folded clothes. She walked to the bathroom and there on the valet was the suit she'd last seen him in. Navy jacket and slacks, a pale pin striped Pacific blue shirt and his tasteful blue and white silk tie. No badge, no gun, no cuffs; Roman's men had taken those from him, she still had them in the car or at least she had. IAD probably had them now – just like they'd wanted – they got his badge one way or another.

She returned to the bed and sat carefully on the edge, holding his cell phone in her hands. After a long moment of staring at the phone and it giving her nothing useful, she pocketed it and then leaned back resting on her elbows. There was no sign he'd been abducted, it was like he just walked away, but that was three days ago and nothing, not a note, not a call, not a text, just no Crews. _Where did you go, Charlie? And why?_ She thought. She had started out perplexed, but that gradually changed to worried and then morphed into well and thoroughly pissed off, as it became apparent he'd intentionally left without a word.

After all they'd been through together, what she thought they'd survived together, what she'd realized about him, he'd simply walked away, from her, from them. She became more furious as the days passed and her rage became almost uncontainable.

But Dani Reese was no longer the same person she'd been before. Crews had changed her without even trying. Her old vices and self-destructiveness would not fill the hollowness he left, so she buried herself in work. She took out her rage on bad guys and with crushing effectiveness. She worked 18 sometimes 20 hours a day. She worked past exhaustion, past pain, past caring. She became numb and still she missed him.

Then one morning she came home after spending all night at the office finishing the seemingly unending mountain of paperwork that accompanied the business of policing. It was the time of day before traffic becomes heavy and yet it's still daytime. She left her car at the curb and trudged towards her apartment and her bed totally spent, unwilling and unable to even drink the remainder of the $4 coffee she carried. And there on her porch sat Charlie Crews.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Charlie's POV**

From his spot on her stoop, Charlie watched Dani climb from her car the tiredness in her limbs and pain in her soul etched on her face. She was not there, not "in that moment" and thus her carefully honed instincts did not register him as he waited. He wondered if his appearance kept her from recognizing him but realized it wasn't that - Dani would know him blindfolded and in the dark – she was simply that tired.

He felt instantly guilty for the worry he'd caused her all those long months of being gone and for leaving without a word. She was going to punish him – her anger would be formidable and he ached for it. Just to have her feel something for him – to know that he matter to her one fraction of the way she did to him.

He'd fled LA those long months ago, running from something he could not define but that he feared. In those brief moments when he'd realized he loved her – he was at peace. But in the long moments she gazed at him through that windshield, he realized something else. There was relief present and something else – something in her eyes – hope, faith and an emotion he'd never registered from her before, one he didn't want to think about. Dani Reese loved him and that he was not prepared for.

_Six months earlier…._

He let himself be led away for a second time that day, this time in cuffs. He was jammed down in the back of IAD's unmarked while she was placed in an ambulance and he could not tear his eyes from hers just as before. It was not until they closed the door and severed their visual link that he left her.

Back at the station, IAD put him through the paces, but Charlie really wasn't there. He was with Reese. His Zen shield deflected inquiries, annoyed his captors and stymied any relevant inquiry as effectively as any superpower.

_How did those FBI agents all end up dead Detective Crews? _Charlie responded "everything that lives must die passing into eternity." This earned him scowls that weren't approaching the intensity Reese could summon. He smiled thinking of her fierceness and her fragility; she was so many things – all at once sometimes.

_Did you kill them?_ Charlie was lost again, "who? Oh, the FBI guys? No, no I did not."

_Did you kill Roman Nevikov Detective?_ Charlie's response, "he's dead?" He knew even LAPD would take a couple days to positively ID Roman's burnt body and between now and then he'd need to talk to Connie; well, maybe not Connie, but certainly a lawyer of some sort. Not making that mistake again, trusting the system again he thought. Reese would not want him calling Connie, recalling the two women carefully navigating around each other – neither comfortable with the other. Connie had left him – denied what she heard about Jack Reese. To hurt him perhaps? As he'd hurt her when he wouldn't not cross the line into her desired adulterous liaison with him, but Reese would never leave him. He knew this with the certainty he thought lost to him.

_Detective why was your car buried in Special Agent Bodner's garage with a dead guy under it?_ Charlie shrugged "have you asked Bodner? He doesn't keep a very neat garage I guess. How's my partner?" She always drove, low behind the steering wheel in dark shades, his partner. He could see her in the car if he thought about it.

_Let's concentrate on why you were running from the LAPD Detective Crews_. Charlie quipped a Rwandan proverb, "it is easy to outdistance that running after you, but not that which is running inside you," earning him a quizzical look from the IAD Detective. Reese loved running, she did it for fun; she ran for hours and hours.

The man switched to a different tack, _Detective how about you tell us about your activities this morning…where you went, who you saw, what you did. _Charlie's level gaze never wavered as he responded, "the path of the enlightened leaves no track – it is like the path of birds in the sky." He could still recall the brightness of the spectacular LA sun where he focused his attention to burn away the look she gave him through that windshield.

_Detective,_ the man raised his voice, _you are being unhelpful here. I know you understand what obstruction of justice is?_ Charlie smiled, "you mean like the justice LAPD made sure I got?" There was no mistaking the contempt in his voice regarding justice and the LAPD. Justice was something he and Reese dispensed together. Roman got his just desserts; the man had hurt Reese – _I should have killed him more slowly _Charlie thought.

The man tried to calm things down knowing he was losing Crews. _Help me out here. Why don't you tell me what you would think given the evidence we have here? What would you guess happened today?_

"I never guess. It's a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. One begins to twist fact to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts." Charlie responded his voice once again cool and level. Was he guessing now? What did she feel? He needed to see her, to talk to her, to look at her and ensure she was whole.

_Is that more of this Zen crap you sling?_ The IAD cop asked. If he was looking to provoke a reaction by insulting Zen, it did not achieve the desired effect. "No, actually it's Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories. I think Sherlock Holmes was an excellent Detective. Don't you?" Charlie again avoided the question and negated the entire line of inquiry. He could go on for hours, but he really just wanted to see Reese.

"Maybe we should bring someone in here to help us both," he offered.

_Oh,_ the man began snidely, _and just who would that be?_

Charlie studiously examined his short nails, an affectation he'd learned from Reese to convey boredom. "Last time you mistakenly arrested me, it cost the department several million dollars, but I don't do math – that's why I have lawyers and accountants." He let the insinuation hang and the IAD man swallowed hard like his collar had somehow shrunk two sizes magically. Reese would have worn a smirk at that deftly delivered barb.

_Let's take a break_, the badly spooked IAD guy offered.

"Excellent idea," Charlie smiled, rose, exited the interview room and for the second time that day took the stairs and quickly left the building. He flagged a cab and directed the driver to the Cedar's Sinai where they'd taken Reese. Maybe he'd just misinterpreted what he'd seen – maybe she was still just Reese and he was still just Crews - but he had to know with an intensity that he thought he'd let go of.

IAD would be looking for him again in under twenty minutes. Once again he didn't have a plan beyond getting to Reese. That woman did things to him – he realized – wildly emotional, unexplainable, wonderful and crazy things to him and she had for the longest time now. He smiled to himself and the breathtaking speed at which he'd gone from doting partner to lovesick fool.

He wandered the hallways of the hospital having got this far quickly and now suddenly he wasn't sure if he really wanted to know. _What if he lost the connection he had with her? _He trusted Reese – he who trusted no one. _Was the chance of something more - worth losing what they had?_ _What if she was freaked out by the prospect? _

And there was her illicit boyfriend, their Captain. He was good for her, in a way Charlie could never be. Crews was so very lost in deep thought that he nearly ran into Tidwell coming around a corner in the hospital.

"Shit, Crews," the man groused, "watch where you're going dude." Tidwell stepped back and the look he shot Charlie spoke of sublimated anger tinged with the emerald green of jealousy. Testosterone coursed through both men naturally. Reese was important to both of them. Each man loved her in his own way. Charlie was just beginning to appreciate the depth of his affection for his stubborn young partner, while Tidwell never made a secret of his attraction to Reese.

Charlie thought he could satisfy himself with the simple knowledge she was okay, but Tidwell's distracted response to his question puzzled Crews. Nevikov was a brutal monster who'd made no bones about how physically attractive he thought Reese was. Charlie was seized by the sudden fear of what he might have done to his tiny captive in those long hours he held her. But Tidwell seemed to appreciate his fears and quickly assuaged them.

Charlie was content to leave, but for the nagging need to see her, to touch her warm skin and feel her heart beat. Then Tidwell told him he should and Charlie knew he was right. They both needed closure. They needed to bring the dramatic week to an end – that would set their worlds in balance again – or rock them to their core.

So he quietly pushed the door in to see her sleeping fitfully. Her dark hair and tanned skin against the bleached white of hospital sheets made her appear even wilder than her thrashing and mumbling. She was so very independent and free – his Dani. She was a fierce, untamed spirit. Kidnapped, beaten, tied down and drugged and still she fought. He walked to her side and began talking to her in soothing tones.

The moment his voice met the air she stilled as if she'd been searching in the dark and finally found what she sought. He smiled at their connection. Reese had never wanted to "connect" and here they were connected deeper than either had thought possible. She worried about him when they took him away and it kept her from being at peace.

Charlie knew that feeling. It was the one in the pit of his stomach from the moment he sat at in his kitchen staring at her badge and gun until the moment her head emerged from Roman's SUV. When she was safe, the constriction in his chest eased; until she mumbled his name in her sleep then his chest felt tight again for an entirely different reason. He sat beside her and stroked her hair.

"Reese, honey. It's okay. You're safe." He advised her gently.

"Crews," she demanded, pushy even through the haze of drugs.

"I'm here sweetheart," he let the emotion flow, knowing she wouldn't remember the things he said. He indulged himself in the expression of concern and love she'd never tolerate under normal circumstances.

"You had us all very worried." He talked to give voice to his fear and to let her hear him, to know he was there. "The whole department's been looking for you."

"They didn't find me. You did." She slurred and he realized she'd fought back from the delirium of the drugs and was awake.

"You need to rest, Reese." He chided softly. "Close your eyes and go to sleep."

She shook her head and he moved closer to lock eyes with her. "Please Reese."

She blinked several times and her breathing leveled out. She stared at him, but she was losing focus quickly. "Honey, why do you fight so hard?" he asked a simple question.

"Why do you?" she softly responded.

"I…don't know. I just know I needed to find you. To make sure you were safe."

"I'm only safe when I'm with you." She admitted and it broke his heart.

She loved him. This was not good. It made him deliriously happy and unimaginably frightened. She was here because of him, because of her connection to him. He placed her in danger and instead of being scared; she would want to be closer now. She was Icarus flying too close to the sun, getting burnt, falling and possibly dying and he was the sun. This was the Chinese curse of getting what you wished for.

Her eyes fluttered closed. IAD would be looking for him again now. He had precious little time, but it didn't matter. She was perhaps the most stubborn woman he'd ever known. No amount of explaining would suffice for Reese. He needed to leave – make a clean break. Tidwell would care for her, he was good for her – he loved her and he didn't come with Charlie's baggage and dangers.

God love hurt. He remembered all over again why avoided it. "Reese, I have to go. You won't understand but it's for the best. No one will ever try to hurt you again because of me." Tears glistened in his eyes. He bent to place a chaste kiss on her forehead, but she reached for him and clasping her warm hand behind his neck pulling him closer to the connection they both ached for.

He desperately wanted to kiss her and yet he didn't want to taste what he could never have again. In the end, she was just too attractive, too warm and too close to him to resist. He brushed her lips and was rewarded with his name again just before he kissed her. It was sweet, innocent and yet so full of promise his heart split in two. She breathed his name as they parted, not Crews – but Charlie. He loved her with all his heart - so he ran. Not from IAD, not from LAPD, not from the dark conspiracy that framed him, not from the prospect of going back to prison – he ran from her.

First to the mountains outside LA, then to the Rockies, ultimately to Nepal, Tibet and India seeking solace in the wilderness and Zen, but she everywhere he went – in the scent of coffee on the wind, in the dark tresses of every petite woman he saw, in the mountain streams and the monasteries and in his dreams – Dani Reese haunted him. She was in every piece of fruit, every leather jacket, the smells on the winds and in the trees. And when he could run no more, he stopped, accepted it and let her own him. So he came home and was committed to getting her to take him back. He wasn't leaving until she did.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**Together Again…Almost**

He stood as she approached and she took him in as he rose. His hair was blonder and yet redder, as if he'd been in the sun a lot. His eyes remained the same riveting and indescribable color, not quite blue, not nearly green, but clear and calm. She found herself drawn to them and unable to speak. Her pulse raced shakily and the world tilted and swam as seas of unshed and unacknowledged tears filled her eyes.

She looked down, disconnecting their link, seeking solidity somewhere else, but her eyes soon returned and she noticed he was thicker than she recalled. His face was bearded and that too was reddish blonde, but his smile was the same. She smiled reflexively in return mirroring his gentle grin. He let out an audible sigh like he'd found something he'd lost.

For a moment she forgot how incredibly upset she was with him, how much he'd worried her, leaving without a word or a note and then nothing for six entire months. She forgot for a moment, but then it came rushing back to her, hurtling quickly into her heart like a runaway freight train filled with boxcars of anger from the those many days and weeks of emotion. Her look turned dark, grim and her ferocious anger burned away her tears.

"I know you're mad," he began. One of their first conversations started just like this she recalled, as the synapses in her brain connected the memories and she found her voice.

"No, not mad. I don't think there's a word for what I am," she repeated her words from that day. His grin widened recognizing the synchronicity of their first being together.

Dani faced a choice – anger or something else. There was a long moment when her face showed no emotion whatsoever. Charlie held his breath and waited for the onslaught of Reese's fury. But surprisingly she paused, softened and offered, "Tell me how to get past it."

She was still reeling and seeking any continuity with what she knew to be real. For all she knew the man before her was a mirage.

"You're already past it," he smiled enigmatically.

"I don't know whether to kiss you or kill you," she admitted honestly her relief palpable.

"If I get a vote, I'm going for the kiss option," he joked lightly, stepping closer with each turn of a phrase. "I know you need to know why I left, I'm prepared to tell you now." He paused and then his voice took on a deeper more serious tone, "I wasn't before. But I can do it now – I can tell you…but I'd rather show you," he ended as he stood over her, blocking out the setting sun.

She shivered at his nearness and he noticed it immediately. "Are you afraid of me?" he asked honestly, unmasked curiosity lingering in his tone.

"No," she practically yelped in response, before settling herself and glaring back at him. "I'm not even sure I know you."

"That's not fair. You know me better than anyone," he offered, leaning closer until he could smell her hair. "I left because I had to, not because I wanted to. I wanted to protect you," he warned.

"From what?" she countered, still off balance. He wasn't really here she thought, this wasn't really happening, it was just another one of the sixty or so times she thought she'd seen him or heard him or felt him near.

"From whom is the better question?" he eyed her steadily. "I needed to protect you from me, Dani," his admission voiced in a low, hushed tone. She leaned closer subconsciously as the timbre of his voice lowered drawing her near.

"Who said I needed protecting?" she questioned. "I don't need you to rescue me anymore," her anger bubbled to the surface.

He sought her eyes again before he answered, holding her in place with the softness there, "No, you don't. You never needed me…but I need you. It took me leaving to discover that."

She bit her lip and ducked her head, escaping the intimacy of his gaze. He reached out cautiously, lightly stroking his knuckles down her cheekbone. "Please look at me," he asked and when she looked up his lips brushed hers, but he restrained himself from reaching for her. He clasped his hands behind his back, sure that he wanted her to choose him, but not certain he could resist the draw of his partner, whom he'd missed every instant since he walked away.

"You made me worry about you," she offered.

"That would mean you care," he countered.

"I don't," she tried to sound convincing instead of wanting. "I don't care," she was becoming breathless from his nearness. Each time she spoke her lips brushed his, which were cracked from the wind and sun. Her hand strayed to thumb his raw lips without conscious thought; she didn't even realize she'd touched him.

"Where have you been?" she wondered aloud.

"Did you miss me?" his chuckle rumbling deep in his chest.

"No," said plainly as she nodded, her traitorous head divulging her true answer.

_That's my girl_ he thought as he watched her pink tongue lick her lips. He knew she wanted to kiss him, but his Dani was so very stubborn. Crews knew she would need to come to him and he was a patient man. Dani needed to be the aggressor and she needed it with the persistence of a junkie looking for a fix. He had to be her choice.

Charlie made his choice days ago in the cold clear air of the mountains where he'd sequestered himself to forget about her and then found that he couldn't. Each flower, rock or blindingly beautiful view could not remove from his mind the image of her looking at him through the windshield of that car. He loved her, he was sure of it; he just hadn't counted on her loving him back - for that he was not prepared.

"Admit it. You missed me didn't you?" he goaded lightly as the coarseness of his beard chaffed against the smooth skin of her cheek. He could sense the tenseness of her body, the tautness of the moment. The tone of his voice, the heat of his breathless whispered gibe and irresistible nearness all designed to press her buttons.

He waited patiently, not like his life, his future relied on the delicate, very sharp knife edge of her choice, as he remembered the last time he saw her, doped out of her mind in that hospital right before he fled what he could not acknowledge. He recalled how very small and beautiful she looked even in a hospital gown, with her dark hair against the white pillow and her smooth tanned skin. The machine monitoring her vitals had erupted in a riot of sound as she thrashed and mumbled. He'd reached out to her with his voice, his heart and his hands telling her she was safe, he was with her and no one would ever harm her again. He meant every word of it but as she stilled under his touched, he wondered if he'd promised too much. What if he hurt her?

"Hmm," he hummed the question against her parted lips, presenting the question again as Dani's strong will held her back. _Stubborn, stubborn woman_ he thought, but _god how he loved her_.

Charlie's secret weapon remained that he knew her need nearly as completely as his own, remembering the breathless whisper of his name from her lips like a plea "Crews" first in the orange grove, then that night in the hospital when he kissed her for the first time.

He meant only to place a chaste kiss on her forehead, but lingered too long over her gentle relaxed features, stroking her hair until he gave into his desire and dipped his head to lightly touch her lips. He found her lips warm, smooth and inviting as she opened to the kiss that, while brief, was the stuff of fairytales. His heart fluttered, as her eyes briefly opened and she smiled at him. Then she released his name with a contented sigh and drifted into a peaceful sleep. His memory caused him to smile against her lips and that did the trick.

"No, I didn't miss you. You're a fucking asshole, Crews." Her lips whispered across his as he heard the soft thump of coffee hitting the lawn a millisecond before she grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled him towards her.

"But you still love me right?" he said straightening his back and effectively lifting his lips out of reach of hers. She glared at him, but his eyes twinkled back merrily. "I love you, you know. That's why I had to leave."

She bit her lip and groaned in frustration, for a fraction of a second he thought she was going to leave before she looked up at him and asked him a hard question. "Why'd you come back?"

He smiled and leaned close again. "Because I love you." His circular logic drew a groan from his frustrated partner. "Because I need you. I have $50 million dollars. I can buy almost anything in the world, except what I want, what I need. I want you Dani, you're all I need, you're everything I want," he told her intensely serious.

"You sure got a funny way of showing it," she said, enjoying his disadvantage. He'd worried her and she was determined to make him pay in some small way, but inside she yearned to kiss his cracked raw lips and put her hands into his too long, shaggy red hair.

"I can fix that," his voice took on a distinctly bedroom timbre. Again she shivered. His lips slanted across hers as he released his restrained arms from their prison and enveloped her in his tight embrace. He groaned as her tongue swept into his mouth tasting of coffee and chocolate. He swallowed her breath and drove his tongue to meet hers. His cracked lips burned from her touch, the fierceness of her kiss bringing the metallic taste of blood to his mouth.

He found he simply didn't care as her fist gripped his shirt pulling him ever closer. One of her hands tangled in his hair, grasping it tightly at the nape of his neck between her small strong fingers, pulling him impossibly close. His teeth nipped at her neck as his hands sought purchased against her ribcage, she was so thin, so very frail and small and yet so fierce, fiery and alive. He inhaled the scent of her body and she buried her head against his neck as he lifted her in his arms. She was light and energy; everything he needed and all he ever wanted.

"Put me down or you die, Crews," she warned darkly, but there was laughter in her voice.

"I'll take my chances. I know you're tough, but I've got a longer reach and we'll make it to the bedroom faster this way," he joked as he continued to kiss her neck.

"The door's locked…" she started.

"I've been here awhile…so not anymore," he pushed it open with his knee.

"How'd you know I'd take you back?" she raised an eyebrow at him.

"I wasn't leaving until you did," he grinned, kicking the door shut. "Now take off your clothes before I rip them off you," he said, pushing her against the wall and kissed her hard.

Dani made no effort to remove even a stitch of her clothes. Instead she seemed intent on stripping him bare before they got out of the living room. A cell phone buzzed insistently in his pocket, interrupting their feverish disrobing. He reached into the pocket, opened the front door and tossed it onto the lawn. "I'll buy another one," he promised as he allowed her to shuck him out of his now unbuttoned shirt.

She put her head on his bare chest resting her forehead against his pounding heart as they both breathed heavily. He reached behind her to untwist the rubber band that held her hair in a ponytail. She shook her hair loose for him as he buried his hand in it. He desperately wanted to kiss her again, but Dani would not be distracted from the belt and buttons of his 501 Levis.

"Hey," he spoke softly his hot breath tickling her ear and then drawing her lobe into his mouth, "slow down sweetheart." She growled at him and any restraint he planned snapped with her expression of want and need. He became singularly focused and forced both hands into her hair.

"Dani, look at me," he asked gently. She did and the raw desire he saw there shocked him. "Let's go to bed," he pleaded hoarsely, almost unable to speak, his desire for her so great. She wordlessly took his hand and drew him down the hall to her bedroom.

He stopped in the doorway and pulled her back to him. "You're mine, Dani. I need you to know that. I want you to be mine, only mine…always mine." He outlined the terms and level of his commitment.

"Thought you weren't supposed to be attached to things Crews," she teased.

"You are not a thing. You are everything, you are my entire universe and for you I'll make an exception." She seemed to consider him for a moment and his demand.

"Okay," she agreed, looking him in the eyes confidently. She was a new person, a strong person and with him by her side, she was a complete person.

She began to take off her clothes and he stilled her hands, "Let me," he asked. She acquiesced; instead placing her hands on his arms, running them lightly from his forearms upwards to his biceps, caressing his shoulders and triceps before returning down the arm trailing her nails along his skin. It was his turn to shiver as goose bumps broke out across his flesh. She smiled and warmed his arms with her flattened palms.

"One more thing," he said while he laved her collarbone and laid a trail of hot, wet kisses up her neck, setting another condition and eliciting yet another groan from her.

"Did I ever tell you that you talk too much Crews?" she laughed at him being Charlie.

"That's the thing," he nipped at her taut neck muscles and divesting her of her bra at the same time, "you need to stop calling me Crews," he told her patiently as he drew his hands down her chest pulling her bra with him. He admired her breasts and licked his lips before descending to wrap them around her taut nipple. Her back arched and his name again left her lips, breathlessly, "Crews."

He raised his head and forced her to look at him. "It'll get confusing," he offered. She returned a quizzical look forcing him to explain, "With your name being Crews too."

She shook her head clearing it. "And why would my name be Crews too?" she leveled the question at him with a strange look in her eyes.

"You know…. when we get married…" he offered. Dani blinked, shook her head again, abruptly closed her shirt and walked past him out of the room. Charlie collapsed onto the bed and groaned. Too much, too fast he realized.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5 - Away and Apart**

**Reese's POV**

**Content Warning: **_Next couple chapters dive into some serious smut, so cover the kid's eyes and don't read this if you aren't old enough to appreciate it._

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Dani fled to her kitchen. There she raged for the better part of forty minutes like a cyclone. Ten minutes ago she hadn't seen him in six months and already he was driving her mad.

_He vanished without a word or trace and now he just presumed all was forgiven and they'd get married and live happily ever after? Really?_ _The bastard had some nerve thinking he could just walk back in after what he'd pulled and just assume she'd take him back… as __a __partner, maybe… a lover was pushing his luck…but married? Seriously? The man must have suffered a severe blow to the head. He had to be confused. No one does this to Dani Reese, no one has that much control over me_ – she thought angrily.

Some of her thoughts were muttered aloud until she realized she was talking to herself – just like Crews, and that only served to deepen her ire. He'd crept into every nook and cranny of her brain and seeped into the very fiber of her being and it infuriated her. As she paced and fumed and fussed, her anger ebbed and flowed at his failure to follow her and engage with her.

She wanted a fight, but Crews knew his audience, Dani when pursued – fled. So he waited. He knew that he had to give her time, and he had to give her space. Just as before it had to be her choice, she had to come to him, so he waited and eventually his eyes fluttered closed. Surrounded by the softness of her bed infused with a smell uniquely Reese, he sighed and let himself appreciate the scent and softness of the woman and drifted into sleep.

Reese stared at the doorway to her room knowing any minute now he'd emerge and then they'd finish this once and for all. Finality, that was what she wanted. For something in her life to be a closed chapter, not a jagged edge, but in those moments Dani realized that just as everything is connected, nothing is ever finished. Life is a work in progress.

She resigned herself to simply telling him what his leaving had done to her. How his absence tore a great jagged hole in her heart and nothing was the same without him there - to annoy her, pester her, trust her and love her - like he did – like only he could. She waited but he didn't emerge from the room and eventually she went to find him.

Part of her was beginning to imagine she'd worked so hard, for so long and missed him so much, that he wasn't really there at all. Part of her wondered if their brief heated encounter wasn't just a wish unfulfilled, a fantasy, an imagining. Part of her knew she was insane to love Charlie Crews and this just proved it; she'd finally lost her mind and began hallucinating people who just weren't there. Seeing him where he wasn't.

She had to know in the way that people just have to know things, so she crept quietly to the doorway of her bedroom to examine the man lying in her bed. Outwardly, she maintained the appearance of control, but her insides seethed with anger, rage and something else she'd never before felt for Charlie Crews – lust. Even with his scruffy beard and thirty odd pounds heavier, he'd never looked better to her. That he could sleep while her insides were so jumbled up was infuriating and yet so quintessentially Crews.

He was the calm center around which her chaotic world spun. He tethered her and somehow managed to also unhinge her seemingly always two things at once. A circumstance created chimera – he was an anomaly in the homogenous world of people trying to fit in and swim in the stream. The stream bent around Charlie Crews, it ran through him. He could be both vicious and tender, sometimes in the same breath. He carried the image of light with darkness buried deep in his soul and psyche, but he was real and solid.

Crews was sleeping peacefully on his back with his legs crossed at the ankles and his hands folded, fingers intertwined on his chest. His face wore a hint of a smile and peacefulness graced his features. He was completely relaxed and at ease.

She had no idea who Charlie Crews was and what he'd been like before prison, she doubted he remembered either. But the man she was partnered with three years ago was different - harder, lean and taut, like a coiled spring. Everything about him spoke of potential energy waiting to be released. She recalled how, armed with only a four-inch titanium knife, quick reflexes, good humor and hard won experience, he had been quietly at war with the world when she met him. He was no longer always angry, instead using his totem – Zen as a shield. Not yet at peace – with so very many wrongs still to be righted.

The man before her now was different. He was at peace, he'd accepted what he could not change and he was the man he wanted to be. The hard lines of worry his brow sometimes wore were smooth and the lines at the corners of his eyes that crinkled when he really smiled were softer. In fact Crews himself looked softer; it wasn't just the beard, though that made him appear almost teddy bearish. It was the extra weight he'd put on; probably about thirty pounds - but in all the right spots. She ached to touch him again, to feel the solidity of his chest beneath her hands. He was no longer hard and lean, but he was solid and real and here – and most importantly he was hers.

His slumber reminded her of perps they'd put in the box and leave for a while before interrogation. Only the innocent worried, raged and gnashed their teeth; the guilty ones would go to sleep almost immediately. They were relieved by their arrest - the worst they could imagine had come to pass. They were in that moment and it granted them a measure of peace – to surrender to "having been caught." Charlie Crews had also given in, surrendered. She owned him body and soul and knowing this he slept the dreamless rest of a man who knew he'd been caught and was relieved by it.

She stood in the doorway watching him for several long moments, lingering in her bitter, uncertain, unhappy past, before she too surrendered to their conjoined future. She approached him cautiously having learnt not to surprise the man who spent twelve years honing a sixth sense in federal maximum security prison. He could feel people inside his personal space, long before he could smell them, see them or hear them and it made him jumpy and unpredictable. With Crews' obvious lethality it made for a dangerous combination.

More than once she'd not warned of her silent approaching and watched his apprehension in widening pupils and flared nostrils as he fought to control his physical response. Being inside Crews' personal space was like standing next to a large racehorse, spook it and it could kill you without meaning to – they were both that powerful. Charlie woke the instant the pressure on the bed changed, signaling her approach, but the only sign he gave was a slight twitch in his smile.

"I know you're awake," she warned in a low tone. "Don't be cocky. How'd you know I'd come back?"

"Easy - you live here," he chuckled. The sound of his baritone laugh and his easy smile sent shivers down her spine. "Ask me something hard next time."

His hand came to her across the bed. She grasped it and he gently pulled her to lie beside him. Her head rested on his shoulder and his hand tangled in her hair. They both sighed heavily and their contentment in the other's presence was expected and welcome. She closed her eyes and inhaled the many scents associated with Crews – some familiar, some new. He still smelled clean, like soap and sunshine. There was a hint of some very expensive cologne that tickled her nose but was just out of identifiable reach. Some day she'd learn what it was, she hoped. She turned her face into his neck and inhaled deeply. She could feel him do the same in her hair.

His eyes remained closed and Dani found she missed them. His eyes were so expressive and yet demanding and she ached to look into those pale eyes and see the adoration there that had frightened her before. She wanted it the way a man wandering the desert wants water. She wanted to see his truth, hear it and feel it. Her hand stroked the side of his face and found his reddish blonde beard to be surprisingly soft. When her hand reached his chin, she reversed her course and sunk her nimble fingers into his beard turning his face to hers, "Crews, look at me."

His eyes blinked open. "I don't need to you know," he offered carefully.

"Oh, yeah," she responded, "why's that?"

"Because," he said softly, while holding her with his deep gaze, "you're all I see, waking or sleeping. I know the curves and angles of you by heart. But what I want most is to learn them in other ways."

"What other ways?" she demurred knowing full well he was alluding to the road they traveled on prior to her hasty departure.

"I could tell you…but I'd rather show you," he grinned at her and winked.

Dani ran her thumb along his dry bottom lip, ignoring him. It looked as though he'd split the lower lip several times from lack of care, instead of fighting like he used to. "Why are you so different? The beard? The clothes? Did you change?"

"I tried," he offered. "But no matter what I do, where I go or where I live – there's something missing…" he trailed off as his hands broke free and caressed her arm, stroking it lightly eliciting shivers yet again.

"What's missing?" she redirected. "You have enough money to buy anything."

"What I want can't be bought, or even earned," he told her honestly. "What I'm missing must be freely given or it's not worth having."

She bent closer to him, brushing her lips against his, she asked him, "Tell me what you want Charlie."

"You," his answer was simple and it was one they both knew before he said it, but it didn't stop the small gasp that escaped her before he closed the distance between them and locked her in a fierce kiss.

They were on fire, his hands were free and they lit her body with trails of sensations she'd almost forgotten. A half hour ago, she'd wanted to kill him and now she wanted to fuck him senseless – was this love? She wasn't sure, but it was better than anything she'd ever known and she wanted it, him, badly enough to hope it was - to believe it could be. All she really knew was that the hole in her heart was sealed the minute Charlie Crews held her again.

"How can I be sure you won't just take off again?" she gave voice to her fears when they broke.

"You can marry me," he whispered into her ear, doggedly pursuing his goal of making her his – in body, soul and name.

She groaned and buried her head in his shoulder.

He reached for her chin and raised her eyes to his. "We don't have to, but I'll never stop asking you. And I promise, I will never leave you again unless you ask me to."

"Not to save me? Not to protect me?" she wrung her promise from him.

He shook his head solemnly no.

"Good," she told him her heartbreak with a straight face and no guilt, "because nothing hurt me worse than you leaving and I don't think I could go through it again."

"I won't ever hurt you like that again, Dani," he told her with tears in his eyes. "The hardest thing I ever did was to leave and I couldn't stay gone. I got as far away as I could but everywhere I looked I saw you."

"Where did you go?" she queried, needing to know.

He sighed and looked far away like he was seeing into another world. "Nepal, Tibet, Northern India…a Buddhist pilgrimage of sorts, I suppose. I thought being there would make me forget, lose the attachment I felt to you, but it didn't. Then I came back to the US and went to the Rockies. Ate too much, drank too much as you can see…" he gestured to his chest and thickened middle. "I did nothing but look out into the wilds and try to forget. But you are hard to forget, Dani, damned hard."

"Sometimes people can help you forget," she hinted at her own penchant for losing herself in the anonymity of strangers.

"No," he said firmly, "not me, I didn't want anyone else, just you. And I wanted you so badly that it hurt, that it scared me, that I had to leave…"

"Why didn't you just…" she trailed off unable to finish her sentence as his mouth latched onto her neck and his tongue drew fascinating circles there against her sensitive skin. She hummed with pleasure as he slid an arm under her and pulled her atop him.

"There," he whispered as he laid kisses up her jaw line to her earlobe, "That's what I've been missing…." Her hair fell across his face and he stroked it back along her cheek until his long, lean fingers were threaded through it and his palm rested against her face warming it. "I dreamed about this, about you. I love you Dani. I think maybe I have from the start."

"I missed you every day, you bastard," she muttered into his chest. "God damn you Charlie."

"Oh, he has," Crews chuckled in return. "I've fallen in love with the most difficult woman. She's beautiful in the way a Hindu goddess is, with a fiery temper to match. She's smart, sexy, fiercely independent and stubborn too." He laid kisses in her hair. "I know she'll burn me down, cut me all over and still she's all I want," he spoke his conflict aloud.

She ran her hand up his chest, over his beard, which was thick but surprisingly soft, threading her fingers through the reddish, blonde hair.

"You like the beard?" he asked in a deliberately low tone.

"No," she disagreed with him out of habit, then relented. "Um….well maybe…yes," came her final answer as he buried his head in her neck and nuzzled her lightly. It was a strange sensation and yet, not unpleasant. Charlie seemed to enjoy changing her view of him and she wasn't entirely sure why.

"Where have you been Crews?" She asked distractedly.

He wasn't sure if she missed his first answer or just scrambling for command of a physical circumstance rapidly spiraling out of her control. He could appreciate her quandary as he became lost in the sensation of her.

"Trying to get you out of my head," he replied a nothing response.

"Why'd you come back?" she dogged him. Insecurity nagged at her, but he'd tolerate as many questions and explain it as many times as it took to convince her he was back to stay.

"Couldn't," he was short in explanation. "I failed miserably," he added as he kissed her quickly.

She planted her hand in the middle of his chest and pushed away. She created physical distance to fight what she could not control. "I want a real explanation, not some glib remark and not some cryptic Zen crap," she told him seriously.

He sighed and ran his free hand through his longer hair as it fell into his eyes. He knew there'd be penance with Dani – done on his knees and this was where it began.

"When I left you were someone else's girl and you were happy," he pled his case. "I didn't want to ruin what happiness you'd found. I'm no good for you, we both know it." At this she frowned and he hurried the rest, "But I found that you are the one thing I can't forget, can't put out of my head and can't walk away from. You are my one, Reese."

She considered him seriously and watched as apprehension and a touch of fear crossed his face. He seemed to think she might not take him back – for that she was grateful. She had accepted him back in the instant she had looked up and seen the flash of his red hair on her doorstep, but it was not good for him to know that. He'd put her through hell and now to show up with his long hair, beard and beginning to look like the middle aged man he was – instead of the taut, tense man she'd met three years ago. She was astounded to find that he was more attractive to her than ever.

He was not even close to her type. She leaned toward dark men with thick hair, broad chests and fearsome appetites – punishers. Charlie Crews was fair, almost beautiful. His lightness balanced with ferocity and yet he possessed the grace of a warrior angel. He could kill without compunction, but he would never hurt her and she knew it. He was what home felt like. She ached to hold him close and just listen to his strong heartbeat in his chest, but her hand held him at bay, gently but firmly just out of reach. It seemed they both feared each other and the strength of their unexpected bond.

"Please Dani," he beseeched her and those blue eyes begged forgiveness, "let me in."

"You're already in here, moron. You're lying in my bed for Christ's sake, Crews…."

"Not in here," he gestured to her heart, "in here."

She looked down to where his finger trailed down her chest between her breasts and stayed over her heart, then up at his face and bright, clear eyes.

She removed her hand and once again stroked his cheek, commenting absently, "I want to be able to touch you," her comment clearly meaning more than physically.

"You do," he said gently, grasping her hand by the wrist. He turned it over to plant a soft kiss in her palm. She arched her brow, but said nothing as he pulled her wrist to his lips and kissed her pulse, which raced, under his touch.

"Did you miss me honey?" This time she nodded no longer trying to deny her longing for him was as constant as his.

"What have I told you about nicknames?" she chided.

He closed the distance to her lips, "That you don't like them and don't want one," he murmured over her lips as they reached for his. "Doesn't mean I can stop…doesn't mean I want to stop….do you want me to stop, Dani?"

"I want you to stop… talking," she told him her exasperation with his constant chatter. Then his eyes darkened and he kissed her with the abandon they both ached for.

His mouth slanted across hers as he kissed her with wildness she did not know he possessed. The controlled measured, even sometimes frightening man she knew did not lose control. But as her hands rode up his back and her nails dug in, he responded with even more vigor and less restraint. He pushed over, knocked down or blew away any remaining barriers between them with his anxious and fevered kisses. Dani felt burnt away completely - like nothing of the past six months remained. Only here, now, with him, that was all that mattered.

His hand wove under her tiny torso raising her toward him and he became nearly frenzied in his approach. She feared he might lose control nearly as much as she relished the idea of driving him as mad. But he caught himself and pulled back breathless, his eyes lit with some incandescence she'd never seen before.

Her eyes roamed over his body as her hands began a careful exploration of virgin territory. Crews was careful to keep his fair skin covered, but she could now see the latticework of paler, whiter scars filigreeing his skin and the dusting of fine red hair trailing from his chest and disappearing into his jeans. She ran first her hands, then her tongue over each scar before his guttural growl told her he'd had enough gentle exploration.

She pulled away to find his eyes dark with lust, but his face and smile still soft and gentle. Gone was the hard, dark man she knew lurked inside him. This lover was practiced and patient, but full of want and desire barely restrained. With this man she would make her deal and live her life - as his partner, in all things.

"You want in? I want you to let go. Show me you trust me; I need to feel the full force of your want, your need. I want you to lose control. That's what you have to do to be with me Charlie."

She could see the struggle in his eyes and on his face plain as day. He fought for control daily. He feared that releasing his passion would hurt her. He'd sublimated impulse and feeling for so long, she awoke a sleeping giant of need that he was not at all certain he could control. She watched as he bit in lip in frustration and wanted to look elsewhere, but couldn't. "I need you to trust me Charlie. I'm not her. I'd never desert you."

Her implication cut both ways; Jennifer who betrayed and deserted him and his more recent departure and its profound effect on her. Then she gently kissed the corners of his mouth, then that sweet, broken bottom lip of his and ground her pelvis against him and he could hold back the wave of emotion he felt for her no longer.

His growl was something he could not control and possibly never even registered as he reached for her again. Something inside him snapped as he crushed her small body to his and kissed her like a drowning man clings to his last breath. Her lips became his lifeline; her touch his heart beat and her body his refuge. Their kissing deepened hinting of the penetration yet to come lower and later. He slowed and his exploration became intensely personal; it was not the frenzy of a man without practice or companion. It was a love song of mixing breaths, tongues and souls and when he released her Dani thought it possibly she'd never really been kissed before – not like that.

"Take these clothes off, I need to feel you under me, now, " he said in a deep whisper. Her response to him was automatic and without hesitation. She amazed him. He'd walked away and she'd taken him back with a warmth and completeness he'd never felt before.

Dani felt she couldn't stop from complying anymore than she could stop breathing – it was an automatic response. They were hurtling toward the inevitable with ever increasing speed. Their physical coupling would complete the bond they'd built over the past three years; the connection both of them yearned for and desperately wanted.

Her cell phone buzzed and he froze. Work - he knew it.


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER 6 - The smut continues...**

Dani retrieved the phone from her discarded coat and glanced at the number, knowing it by heart. Sadness and regret flashed across her eyes, before she looked up at him. She was there, in his arms, flushed with lust and her hair wild, her clothes half off and this would take her away. Charlie was suddenly seized with unreasonable anger at the small inanimate object. He took it from her and calmly walked the bathroom and drowned it.

Dani was shocked, but gradually a wry grin crept over her face as Charlie walked from the bath wiping hands. He leaned down and crawled across the bed on all fours, "Now where were we?" His grin was positively predatory. He meant to make love to her tonight. Even if the entire city burned – they were not leaving this room until she was his.

"What'd you do to my phone?" she asked teasing.

"It's having technical difficulties. I'll buy you a new one. I'll buy you ten of them... or a hundred….tomorrow," he spoke with lust darkened eyes. "I've waited all my life to feel this way about someone and I'm not letting go of you tonight Dani, not now." He pressed her back into the mattress, his narrow hips overlaying her body, now pulsing from her temple to her molten core in time with his heartbeat.

"I want so much….but for now, I just want to touch you, to hold you, to kiss you," he said punctuating his demands with kisses.

"You damned sure better do more than that," she threatened seductively. "You get me this worked up and don't deliver - one of us is not leaving this room alive," she taunted her lover.

"Yes, ma'am," he sunk into her and ground his pelvis against hers. She gripped his back tightly and reciprocated. They both groaned in exquisite agony. "One of us is wearing too many clothes, honey…." He demanded, "I need these off now Dani. You take them off or I will."

"You have to let go of me for me to do that Crews," she laughed. Dani Reese did not laugh in bed. Sex for her was serious business. She didn't tease. She didn't have fun with it. She used it for physical release with everyone but the man now torn between disrobing her and releasing his grip on her. His expression was one of both wonder and frustration.

"Crews, focus, dammit," she helped him along in that demanding tone he'd missed so very badly. "Take off your pants, I guarantee you I'll beat you back to bed," she grinned. With that Charlie pushed off her, unbuckled and dropped his trousers only to find his shoes in the way.

She again laughed. "Rookie."

Crews reached into the pocket of his jeans and produced his ever-present knife, sliced through the laces of his shoes and had them off in an instant. He folded the blade, placed it carefully on her nightstand and reached for her again.

"Nothing is getting between you and me tonight," he coached. "Dani, let me love you," he begged her and latched his hot mouth and talented tongue around her exposed breast.

She gasped at the hunger in his tone and the magical things his tongue was doing to her. She bent to kiss his neck and he pulled her tightly against his chest.

"My turn first, sweetheart," he said in a darkly intimate tone. "Wait till I'm done."

He used his arms to sweep the pillows aside and laid her on the smooth sheet. He kissed a trail down her body to her sensitive inner thighs. He put his hand under her buttocks and raised her till she opened like a flower for him. He made full use of his beard in exciting her with the changes in texture on her thighs and tummy, while he teased at his intended target. Then suddenly he closed on her and she was helpless and writhing beneath him. His tongue flicked over her as he worked her into a frenzy before releasing her shuddering body to climb back up her length.

He wove his hands under her shoulders and held her still as he called her back from the stars. "Dani," he spoke in a voice so low she thought she'd imagined it, "look at me, honey." She forced her eyes open and he moved to kiss her. His tongue drove deeply, but he moved with a languid thorough sweetness that made her want to weep. She reached for him, to steady and guide him and he drew back. "I want you first, Dani."

"God, Charlie, please don't make me ask you," she hated the need in her voice.

"You want this now?" he questioned. "I can wait…" he offered.

She shook her head furiously and ground her moist center against him. He growled a response that could not have meant anything but want and let her guide him to her opening. He wanted nothing more than to bury himself inside her and never leave, but he eased himself along, feeling her relax to accommodate him.

"God you feel so good…like home. You feel like… I'm finally home, Dani," he mumbled nonsense as the emotion of their coupling overwhelmed him.

He returned to his kissing and when her felt her relax he slowly moved in time with her. They moved in a gentle rhythm that he increased as he felt her build toward a second stronger orgasm. He relocated his mouth to the joining of her shoulder and neck and his mouth repeated her name over into her ear as he lost the ability for higher brain function. He was like a salmon returning to the sea, his entire body sang her name, her smell and feel.

She'd been silent, but as she rode the tide of the second wave her head lolled back and the pleasure ripped through her, she gasped his name. He wanted to kiss it off her lips, but he couldn't reach them. She grabbed his buttocks and forced him deeper inside. The last thing he remembered was them moving faster in time together. Time sped up and stood still simultaneously as she bucked wildly under him and he at long last consummated his love with her. He said the words he'd held in for long, "I love you, I love you, I love you…."

She did not recoil or shift away from him, as he expected, she kissed his temple gently and told him she knew. Then after a pause so long he thought she'd fallen asleep, she whispered into his ear in a tiny but true voice, "I love you Crews, but if you ever do that, scare me like that again, I'll kill you in your sleep."

He smiled against her skin and ran his hands up the ticklish sides of her torso. "I'm going to make you deliriously happy for the rest of your life. This is just the start, honey." He promised her things she'd never let him do, buy and try, but he wanted to let her know that there was nothing he wouldn't give her.

"I don't want your damned money Crews. I don't want the house, I don't want…okay, the car maybe…but I don't want anymore than this right here," she intimated them together. "That's all I want, you're more than enough."

"Okay, but if you think of something you want you'll let me know right?" he joked.

"I'll let you know Crews," she shot back, "but this is plenty."

He held her tightly against him and when she drifted to sleep, he made her another promise. "I won't ever let anyone hurt you Dani. I won't let them drive us apart. You and me, we are all I ever want, everything I need. Some day when you'll let me - I'm gonna give you something else. I'm gonna make you a mother and you're gonna have the sweetest little girls. I'm going to spoil you all and no one will ever touch my girls."

In the back of her dulled brain, Dani heard the whispered supposings of her mate and part of her dismissed them as patent Crews ramblings, part of her acknowledged them as the logical outcome of their coupling and the type of man her partner was. All he'd ever wanted was a normal life, couple of kids, a nice house and a woman who loved and believed in him. He had the house and the woman; soon enough the kids would come. She would be terrified, but Charlie would be great and he'd more than make up for her shortcomings.

In a single day her whole life changed, but then a single day had changed his too. That event set them on a collision course and a conjoined future. She wondered if her father were alive, how pissed he'd be and how much he'd insisted her decision was about him. But it wasn't. Jack Reese may have put Charlie Crews in prison, but he didn't make him survive it, thrive on it and emerge from it like a phoenix from the ashes. "They" may have partnered Crews with her, but they'd never understand the things he did to her, the trust he'd rebuilt and faith he'd restored.

The angry part of Dani Reese wanted to turn him away when she'd seen him there on that stoop. But another stronger part wanted to run to him, like she had that day in the orange grove to feel his strong heart beating for her and his embrace that made her feel safe and loved. She realized he'd changed her, she could no longer reach for the easy anger, Crews' shield against the world covered her too. Crews was something no one had counted on – not even her; he was built of steel and tempered in the fires of hell. He looked light and fair but he possessed a strength she was just now beginning to appreciate. He was a force of nature, he was a warrior and he was the one true love every woman hopes for and so few find.


	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER 7**

In the early morning hours, Charlie awoke to Dani wrestling and mumbling in her sleep, looking for the man sleeping beside her. Her desperation was palpable and he was immediately and irrevocable sorry for having ever made her worry like she obviously did. He shushed her gently his lips on her ear and spoke the words that let her return to restful sleep. "Dani, I'm here and I'm never gonna leave." She settled down grasping his arm and wrapping it around her torso. He snuggled her into the curve of his body and held her like a child holds a precious teddy bear.

* * *

When she woke the following morning, her bed was warm and the soft breath on her neck told her Crews still slumbered. She moved his arm carefully and tried to quietly rise without him.

"Where you going honey?" He said sleepily.

She sighed at the affectation and he simply chuckled low in his chest and drew her closer again, rolling her onto her back.

"I know," he said somberly, "don't call you that, except that I can't help it." He kissed her lightly. "You taste so good. Sweeter than any fruit…like something indescribably good and something I can't get enough of…" he continued to nibble lightly on her neck as his hands worked lower and slower. He was rapidly building that fire again and when his rough palms grazed her thighs Dani Reese made a groan that she wasn't sure had actually come from her because she couldn't recall having wanted anyone that badly before.

"Please let me call you honey…I promise I won't use it in public…much."

"Crews?" she questioned. He hummed a response.

"Anyone ever tell you that you talk too much?"

"So…less talk, more truth?" he delivered a play on words with a familiar Zen saying.

She nodded and gently kissed his damaged bottom lip with a tenderness Charlie didn't know she possessed. His welcoming groan was utterly satisfying. Served him right to hurt for all the time they'd lost. She recognized that she'd missed him in every instant of it waking or sleeping. He completed her and as he rolled them onto her back, pinning her under him, she told him "Yes."

"Yes, what?" He wondered.

"Yes, I'll marry you," she grinned. Adding, "If I'm going to be forced to live with you for the rest of my life, I might as well make it legal. That way if you run off again I'll have the financial wherewithal to track you down to the ends of earth."

He arched and eyebrow at her, "I'm not leaving Dani. You have my word."

"At this point I'm more terrified of you walking out that door and never seeing you again than I am of what they'll do to us at the department, of what my mother will say, than of how strongly I feel…" her choices once made was without regret or hesitation.

"Tell me something," he kissed along her neckline and moved to unbutton her shirt. She nodded. "You got any vacation coming?" She nodded again.

"Let's go somewhere together. Baja or Cancun? Let's go to that beach you wanna to lay on and forget all this."

"You'll be fried to a crisp," she shook her head.

"I'll wear a hat," he grinned.


	8. Chapter 8

**CHAPTER 8 – Away & Apart**

**Tidwell's POV (mostly)**

It was after 8AM and Dani Reese was not at work. She wasn't answering her phone and that could only mean trouble. As much as he dreaded the idea of confronting his former lover, he couldn't let go of the affection and protectiveness he felt for her. He never stopped caring about the dark little woman in boots and her leather armor. She seemed tough, but he knew she was not. He feared that she'd backslide giving into the seductive siren call of liquor or drugs – do something stupid, something dangerous, something self-destructive and that more than anything got him in his car, which found it's way to her house this morning.

He looked up the walk to her door and the trepidation he felt was worse than he could imagine. If something was wrong he'd feel terrible, but he ached to know. If something wasn't wrong, she was going to kick his ass – but it was a tongue lashing he'd gladly take if it meant she was safe.

He paused half way up the walk to retrieve a discarded cell phone lying in the thick grass. His cop radar went off and he thumbed his holster open and nudged the safety off his gun. Something happened here, something strange. I made him edgy. He fished the old worn key from happier times out of his pocket intent on getting in her place anyway he had to. He was saved from the effort, by the door opening.

He expected one pissed off five-foot brunette, but what he saw shocked him. It was Crews. Standing on the stoop was Charlie Crews in blue striped boxers with a red-checkered flannel shirt hanging open on his tall frame. The open shirt revealed a myriad of scars and a couple ugly prison tattoos. He was no longer long and lean, having filled in considerably since Tidwell last saw the man. His face was bearded and his hair long and almost shaggy. He could have been a biker for all Tidwell knew – except for the piercing blue eyes and the line of straight white teeth Charlie showed. It wasn't necessarily a smile, but all his teeth showed – _maybe Crews was growling at him?_

"Captain," Crews spoke the greeting as a question.

"Crews." There was a long pause during which Charlie walked to Tidwell and held out his hand for the phone. "Oh," he looked down, "this is yours? Wanna explain to me what it was doing in the yard."

"No," Charlie said taking the phone.

"So you're back?"

"No," Crews smiled that unfriendly smile again. "I'm just here for what's mine."

"And that would be?"

"Reese," he told Tidwell plainly. Tidwell's eyes narrowed and the gauntlet thrown lay on the metaphorical turf between the two men. Tidwell blinked first.

"She doesn't love me. She loves you," the Captain admitted. When Charlie smiled, he continued with a veiled threat, "but dude she's so gonna kick your ass," laughing darkly.

"Every day for the rest of my life, I would guess. But I've got a lot of practice at taking a beating, so I'm up for it." Charlie returned coolly.

"So…she's okay?" Tidwell asked insulting Crews who just rolled his eyes.

"Hey, I don't believe any of this 'may the best man win crap'. I think you're dangerous for her and I think I'm better for her." Tidwell spoke his reasoning aloud. It was sound and Charlie had made the same argument to himself for months.

"Crews what the hell is taking you so…" Dani called from the doorway and paused when she saw them. Tidwell waved at her, but she said nothing. Tidwell examined her mused hair, the long legs sticking out from an oversized t-shirt that obviously belonged to Crews and did the math.

"So she took you back?" Tidwell asked quietly of Crews who nodded mutely, his features schooled. "I guess the heart wants what the heart wants," Tidwell said unconsciously under his breath.

"Yes, it does," Charlie told him plainly. "I'm sure there will be some penance to pay, but I love her and I always have."

"I know," Tidwell grimaced, "always have." He turned to walk back to his car. "Tell Reese to call in sick or take some vacation, but just not showing up for work is not cool." Charlie pivoted sharply and returned to the house, as he heard the car start and Tidwell beat a hasty retreat.

"What was that about?" Reese asked.

"Oh, you know…guy stuff," Charlie stiff-armed her inquiry, wrapping his arm around her and steering her back inside. "Here," he put the phone in her palm, "since yours doesn't exactly work… we need this so you can call in sick. And then I'm going to make us pancakes," he leaned to kiss her and she planted a hand in his chest and pushed him back.

"You know perfectly well there's nothing in this house you can use to make pancakes with," she warned "and you're avoiding my question and not telling me everything." She eyed him skeptically.

"Well, I might surprise you to know that I don't know everything," he joked.

And as her look turned dark he clarified. "On the bright side, I used to say 'nothing happened' – and since we've established there can't be nothing – so that's progress," he smiled cheerily and this time she let him kiss her without protest.

Some things changed and some things didn't. He still maddened and infuriated her. He still tried to protect her from things that he thought might harm her. He still valued her life and her feelings more than his own. He was still Crews. Barefoot in her hallway, in striped blue boxers looking like some strange mélange of biker and lumberjack from the waist up, he was by no means perfect - but she loved him.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9 - Coda**

Dani took her vacation. They'd gone to Mexico and it was amazing. He made love to her almost more than she could stand. They got sore from the amount of sex they had and had to do something to recover, so they began looking at houses when it was clear this would be a rather lengthy vacation. One house "felt" right even though it was too big for the two of them. Three years later, Charlie was sleeping in a hammock in the shade of a nice hacienda on a secluded beach in Baja. On his chest lay their fair, red haired, freckled faced son – every inch his father's smiles and sunbeams. Dani held a dark haired beautiful daughter against her chest. She promised to be the one to hit the terrible two's with a vengeance, stubborn like her mother Crews was fond of telling his daughter. With the kids and they'd grown into the house, it was a home now - complete with a beat up Big Wheel on the patio and wooden building blocks Charlie made himself for the kids to play with. They didn't own a television and rarely corresponded with anyone by Internet. It was like they turned back time to a simpler way of life.

Dani Reese was somewhere she never expected – it was nearly like living someone else's life, except it wasn't.

Six weeks after Crews showed up on her doorstep, Dani learned she was pregnant with their son. Neither of them even considered returning to the LAPD or Los Angeles with its crime and the speed of life there. Here they both relaxed. She was happy and when she called her mother to say she was not coming home – the joy in her voice sang down the phone line to paint the picture of the house and home she'd found with the man her father wronged all those years ago. Her mother said it was Allah's will, but Dani no longer knew what to believe. The one constant in her life, the thing she believed most in - was the man cradling his son in the hammock, rocking gently in the breeze.

"Charlie," she said softly after putting the baby down for a nap, "give him to me."

She took her young son and laid him in his bed gently, brushing his red bangs from his freckled face and kissing him gently.

Her young son grumbled softly, "I'm a big boy. I don't need a nap."

She told her son that she knew and asked, "Can you just lay here quietly while Daddy and I take one?" This earned her a knowing, sleepy smile from both her son and his father who stood stretching in the doorway. The boy rolled over and was fast asleep in seconds. She rose, walked to the door and took her husband's hand.

Charlie held her closely against him and told her he loved her – he did this a lot. He said he could never say it enough. He told her he loved her religiously each morning when he woke before her and watched her sleep and every night as he held her gently while they slept. They all rested through the heat of the day as the sounds of the waves on the rocks lulled them to peaceful sleep.

* * *

_Author's Note: Now I could end it "and they lived happily ever after", but honestly wouldn't you rather see Crews and Reese battle Mexican drug cartels and juggle two kids? LMK if a sequel is something you'd read. Feedback = candy and I need my fix._


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